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https://forum.snitz.com/forumTopic/Posts/68383?pagenum=1
04 November 2025, 18:49
Topic
Podge
Very small number problem
12 March 2009, 07:03
Windows scientific calculator calculates .5 ^ 12288 as 8.778357852076208839765066529179e-3700
Anyone know of a calculator that will output the result in ordinary format i.e. 0.0000000000000000000000000<snipped zeros>8778357852076208839765066529179
Any other ideas how I could express exactly how small this number is ?
Replies ...
HuwR
12 March 2009, 07:08
um the reason it expresses it as e-3700 is precicely because it is so small, I'm pretty sure you will never find a calculator that is going to output 3700 digits
Podge
12 March 2009, 12:19
8.778357852076208839765066529179e-3700 means nothing to someone that doesn't know what e-3700 means.
A few pages full of zeros would show how small it is even to the mathematically challenged. I'm looking for other ideas though.
HuwR
12 March 2009, 12:29
if you ask google what 0.5^12288 is, it just returns 0 which is probably close enough
Shaggy
12 March 2009, 12:30
Tried the same calculation in JavaScript and VBScript and they both return 0 as well.
HuwR
12 March 2009, 13:16
yes well -e3700 is so small it is considered to be 0, you would be hard pressed to find anything that would not round it to 0
Podge
12 March 2009, 13:43
I got this idea from here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googolplex
Measure the width of a zero and convert the number to metres in length.
If a zero is 3mm in width the number would be 11.19 metres long (3730 digits). Seem reasonable ?
